The Rape of the Lock and Other Major Writings: Poems and Other Writings (Penguin Classics)

by Alexander Pope

  220 Ye tinsel insects! whom a court maintains,

  That counts your beauties only by your stains,

  Spin all your cobwebs o’er the eye of day!

  The Muse’s wing shall brush you all away.

  All his Grace preaches, all his Lordship sings,

  All that makes saints of queens, and gods of kings;

  All, all but truth, drops dead-born from the press,

  Like the last Gazette, or the last Address.

  When black ambition stains a public cause,

  A monarch’s sword when mad vainglory draws,

  230 Not Waller’s wreath can hide the nation’s scar,

  Nor Boileau turn the feather to a star.

  Not so when diademed with rays divine,

  Touched with the flame that breaks from Virtue’s shrine,

  Her priestess Muse forbids the good to die,

  And opes the temple of Eternity.

  There other trophies deck the truly brave

  Than such as Anstis casts into the grave;

  Far other stars than * * * and * * * wear,

  And may descend to Mordington from Stair;

  240 (Such as on Hough’s unsullied mitre shine,

  Or beam, good Digby! from a heart like thine).

  Let envy howl, while Heav’n’s whole chorus sings,

  And bark at honour not conferred by kings;

  Let flatt’ry sickening see the incense rise,

  Sweet to the world, and grateful to the skies:

  Truth guards the poet, sanctifies the line,

  And makes immortal, verse as mean as mine.

  Yes, the last pen for freedom let me draw,

  When truth stands trembling on the edge of law.

  250 Here, last of Britons! let your names be read;

  Are none, none living? let me praise the dead,

  And for that Cause which made your fathers shine,

  Fall by the votes of their degen’rate line.

  Fr. Alas! alas! pray end what you began,

  And write next winter more Essays on Man.

  The Dunciad

  To Dr Jonathan Swift

  Tandem Phoebus adest, morsusque inferre parantem Congelat, et patulos, ut erant, indurat hiatus.

  Book the First

  ARGUMENT

  The Proposition, the Invocation, and the Inscription. Then the original of the great empire of Dullness, and cause of the continuance thereof. The College of the Goddess in the City, with her private Academy for Poets in particular; the governors of it, and the four Cardinal Virtues. Then the poem hastes into the midst of things, presenting her, on the evening of a Lord Mayor’s day, revolving the long succession of her sons, and the glories past and to come. She fixes her eye on Bays to be the instrument of that great event which is the subject of the poem. He is described pensive among his books, giving up the cause, and apprehending the period of her Empire: after debating whether to betake himself to the Church, or to gaming, or to party-writing, he raises an altar of proper books, and (making first his solemn prayer and declaration) purposes thereon to sacrifice all his unsuccessful writings. As the pile is kindled, the Goddess beholding the flame from her seat, flies and puts it out by casting upon it the poem of Thulè. She forthwith reveals herself to him, transports him to her Temple, unfolds her Arts, and initiates him into her Mysteries; then announcing the death of Eusden the poet laureate, anoints him, carries him to court, and proclaims him successor.

  The Mighty Mother, and her son who brings

  The Smithfield Muses to the ear of kings,

  I sing. Say you, her instruments the Great!

  Called to this work by Dullness, Jove, and Fate;

  You by whose care, in vain decried and cursed,

  Still Dunce the second reigns like Dunce the first;

  Say how the Goddess bade Britannia sleep,

  And poured her spirit o’er the land and deep.

  In eldest time, e’er mortals writ or read,

  10 E’er Pallas issued from the Thund’rer’s head,

  Dullness o’er all possessed her ancient right,

  Daughter of Chaos and eternal night:

  Fate in their dotage this fair idiot gave,

  Gross as her sire, and as her mother grave,

  Laborious, heavy, busy, bold, and blind,

  She ruled, in native anarchy, the mind.

  Still her old empire to restore she tries,

  For, born a goddess, Dullness never dies.

  O thou! whatever title please thine ear,

  20 Dean, Drapier, Bickerstaff, or Gulliver!

  Whether thou choose Cervantes’ serious air,

  Or laugh and shake in Rab’lais’ easy chair,

  Or praise the court, or magnify mankind,

  Or thy grieved country’s copper chains unbind;

  From thy Boeotia though her Pow’r retires,

  Mourn not, my SWIFT, at aught our realm acquires,

  Here pleased behold her mighty wings outspread

  To hatch a new Saturnian age of lead.

  Close to those walls where Folly holds her throne,

  30 And laughs to think Monroe would take her down,

  Where o’er the gates, by his famed father’s hand

  Great Cibber’s brazen, brainless brothers stand;

  One cell there is, concealed from vulgar eye,

  The cave of Poverty and Poetry.

  Keen, hollow winds howl through the bleak recess,

  Emblem of Music caused by Emptiness.

  Hence bards, like Proteus long in vain tied down,

  Escape in monsters, and amaze the town.

  Hence Miscellanies spring, the weekly boast

  40 Of Curll’s chaste press, and Lintot’s rubric post:

  Hence hymning Tyburn’s elegiac lines,

  Hence Journals, Medleys, Merc’ries, Magazines:

  Sepulchral lies, our holy walls to grace,

  And New Year Odes, and all the Grub Street race.

  In clouded majesty here Dullness shone;

  Four guardian Virtues, round, support her throne:

  Fierce champion Fortitude, that knows no fears

  Of hisses, blows, or want, or loss of ears:

  Calm Temperance, whose blessings those partake

  50 Who hunger, and who thirst for scribbling sake:

  Prudence, whose glass presents th’ approaching jail;

  Poetic Justice, with her lifted scale,

  Where, in nice balance, truth with gold she weighs,

  And solid pudding against empty praise.

  Here she beholds the Chaos dark and deep

  Where nameless Somethings in their causes sleep,

  Till genial Jacob, or a warm third day,

  Call forth each mass, a poem, or a play;

  How hints, like spawn, scarce quick in embryo lie,

  60 How new-born nonsense first is taught to cry,

  Maggots half-formed in rhyme exactly meet,

  And learn to crawl upon poetic feet.

  Here one poor word an hundred clenches makes,

  And ductile dullness new meanders takes;

  There motley images her fancy strike,

  Figures ill paired, and similies unlike.

  She sees a mob of metaphors advance,

  Pleased with the madness of the mazy dance:

  How Tragedy and Comedy embrace;

  70 How Farce and Epic get a jumbled race;

  How Time himself stands still at her command,

  Realms shift their place, and ocean turns to land.

  Here gay description Egypt glads with showers,

  Or gives to Zembla fruits, to Barca flowers;

  Glitt’ring with ice here hoary hills are seen,

  There, painted valleys of eternal green,

  In cold December fragrant chaplets blow,

  And heavy harvests nod beneath the snow.

  All these, and more, the cloud-compelling Queen

  80 Beholds through fogs, that magnify the scene
.

  She, tinselled o’er in robes of varying hues,

  With self-applause her wild creation views;

  Sees momentary monsters rise and fall,

  And with her own fools-colours gilds them all.

  ’Twas on the day, when * * rich and grave,

  Like Cimon, triumphed both on land and wave

  (Pomps without guilt, of bloodless swords and maces,

  Glad chains, warm furs, broad banners, and broad faces).

  Now night descending, the proud scene was o’er,

  90 But lived, in Settle’s numbers, one day more.

  Now May’rs and Shrieves all hushed and satiate lay,

  Yet eat, in dreams, the custard of the day;

  While pensive poets painful vigils keep,

  Sleepless themselves, to give their readers sleep.

  Much to the mindful Queen the feast recalls

  What City swans once sung within the walls;

  Much she revolves their arts, their ancient praise,

  And sure succession down from Heywood’s days.

  She saw, with joy, the line immortal run,

  100 Each sire imprest and glaring in his son:

  So watchful Bruin forms, with plastic care,

  Each growing lump, and brings it to a bear.

  She saw old Prynne in restless Daniel shine,

  And Eusden eke out Blackmore’s endless line;

  She saw slow Philips creep like Tate’s poor page,

  And all the mighty mad in Dennis rage.

  In each she marks her image full expressed,

  But chief in BAYS’S monster-breeding breast;

  Bays, formed by nature stage and Town to bless,

  110 And act, and be, a coxcomb with success.

  Dullness with transport eyes the lively Dunce,

  Rememb’ring she herself was pertness once.

  Now (shame to Fortune!) an ill run at play

  Blanked his bold visage, and a thin third day:

  Swearing and supperless the hero sate,

  Blasphemed his gods, the dice, and damned his fate;

  Then gnawed his pen, then dashed it on the ground,

  Sinking from thought to thought, a vast profound!

  Plunged for his sense, but found no bottom there,

  120 Yet wrote and floundered on, in mere despair.

  Round him much embryo, much abortion lay,

  Much future Ode, and abdicated Play;

  Nonsense precipitate, like running lead,

  That slipped through cracks and zig-zags of the head;

  All that on Folly Frenzy could beget,

  Fruits of dull heat, and sooterkins of Wit.

  Next, o’er his books his eyes began to roll,

  In pleasing memory of all he stole,

  How here he sipped, how there he plundered snug

  130 And sucked all o’er, like an industrious bug.

  Here lay poor Fletcher’s half-eat scenes, and here

  The frippery of crucified Molière;

  There hapless Shakespeare, yet of Tibbald sore,

  Wished he had blotted for himself before.

  The rest on outside merit but presume,

  Or serve (like other fools) to fill a room;

  Such with their shelves as due proportion hold,

  Or their fond parents dressed in red and gold;

  Or where the pictures for the page atone,

  140 And Quarles is saved by beauties not his own.

  Here swells the shelf with Ogilby the great;

  There, stamped with arms, Newcastle shines complete;

  Here all his suff’ring brotherhood retire,

  And ’scape the martyrdom of jakes and fire:

  A Gothic library! of Greece and Rome

  Well purged, and worthy Settle, Banks, and Broome.

  But, high above, more solid Learning shone,

  The classics of an age that heard of none;

  There Caxton slept, with Wynkyn at his side,

  150 One clasped in wood, and one in strong cow-hide;

  There, saved by spice, like mummies, many a year,

  Dry bodies of Divinity appear:

  De Lyra there a dreadful front extends,

  And here the groaning shelves Philemon bends.

  Of these twelve volumes, twelve of amplest size,

  Redeemed from tapers and defrauded pies,

  Inspired he seizes; these an altar raise.

  An hecatomb of pure, unsullied lays

  That altar crowns; a folio Commonplace

  160 Founds the whole pile, of all his works the base.

  Quartos, octavos, shape the less’ning pyre;

  A twisted birthday ode completes the spire.

  Then he: ‘Great Tamer of all human art!

  First in my care, and ever at my heart;

  Dullness! whose good old cause I yet defend,

  With whom my Muse began, with whom shall end;

  E’er since Sir Fopling’s periwig was praise,

  To the last honours of the butt and bays:

  O thou! of bus’ness the directing soul!

  170 To this our head like bias to the bowl,

  Which, as more pond’rous, made its aim more true,

  Obliquely waddling to the mark in view:

  O! ever gracious to perplexed mankind,

  Still spread a healing mist before the mind,

  And lest we err by Wit’s wild dancing light,

  Secure us kindly in our native night.

  Or, if to Wit a coxcomb make pretence,

  Guard the sure barrier between that and Sense;

  Or quite unravel all the reas’ning thread,

  180 And hang some curious cobweb in its stead!

  As, forced from wind-guns, lead itself can fly,

  And pond’rous slugs cut swiftly through the sky;

  As clocks to weight their nimble motion owe,

  The wheels above urged by the load below:

  Me Emptiness, and Dullness could inspire,

  And were my elasticity, and fire.

  Some Daemon stole my pen (forgive th’offence)

  And once betrayed me into common sense:

  Else all my prose and verse were much the same;

  190 This, prose on stilts, that, poetry fall’n lame.

  Did on the stage my fops appear confined?

  My life gave ampler lessons to mankind.

  Did the dead letter unsuccessful prove?

  The brisk example never failed to move.

  Yet sure had Heav’n decreed to save the State,

  Heav’n had decreed these works a longer date.

  Could Troy be saved by any single hand,

  This grey-goose weapon must have made her stand.

  What can I now? my Fletcher cast aside,

  200 Take up the Bible, once my better guide?

  Or tread the path by vent’rous heroes trod,

  This box my thunder, this right hand my god?

  Or chaired at White’s amidst the doctors sit,

  Teach oaths to gamesters, and to nobles wit?

  Or bidst thou rather Party to embrace?

  (A friend to Party thou, and all her race;

  ’Tis the same rope at different ends they twist;

  To Dullness Ridpath is as dear as Mist.)

  Shall I, like Curtius, desp’rate in my zeal,

  210 O’er head and ears plunge for the Commonweal?

  Or rob Rome’s ancient geese of all their glories,

  And cackling save the monarchy of Tories?

  Hold – to the Minister I more incline;

  To serve his cause, O Queen! is serving thine.

  And see! thy very Gazetteers give o’er,

  Ev’n Ralph repents, and Henley writes no more.

  What then remains? Ourself. Still, still remain

  Cibberian forehead, and Cibberian brain.

  This brazen brightness, to the squire so dear;

  220 This polished hardness, that reflects the peer;
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  This arch absurd, that wit and fool delights;

  This mess, tossed up of Hockley Hole and White’s;

  Where dukes and butchers join to wreathe my crown,

  At once the bear and fiddle of the town.

  ‘O born in sin, and forth in folly brought!

  Works damned, or to be damned! (your father’s fault),

  Go, purified by flames ascend the sky,

  My better and more Christian progeny!

  Unstained, untouched, and yet in maiden sheets;

  230 While all your smutty sisters walk the streets.

  Ye shall not beg, like gratis-given Bland,

  Sent with a pass, and vagrant through the land;

  Not sail, with Ward, to ape-and-monkey climes,

  Where vile mundungus trucks for viler rhymes;

  Not sulphur-tipped, emblaze an alehouse fire;

  Not wrap up oranges, to pelt your sire!

  O! pass more innocent, in infant state,

  To the mild Limbo of our father Tate,

  Or peaceably forgot, at once be blest

  240 In Shadwell’s bosom with eternal rest!

  Soon to that mass of Nonsense to return,

  Where things destroyed are swept to things unborn.’

  With that, a tear (portentous sign of grace!)

  Stole from the master of the sev’nfold face,

  And thrice he lifted high the Birthday brand,

  And thrice he dropped it from his quiv’ring hand;

  Then lights the structure, with averted eyes:

  The rolling smokes involve the sacrifice.

  The op’ning clouds disclose each work by turns,

  250 Now flames the Cid, and now Perolla burns;

  Great Caesar roars, and hisses in the fires;

  King John in silence modestly expires;

  No merit now the dear Nonjuror claims,

  Molière’s old stubble in a moment flames.

  Tears gushed again, as from pale Priam’s eyes

  When the last blaze sent Ilion to the skies.

  Roused by the light, old Dullness heaved the head;

  Then snatched a sheet of Thulè from her bed,

  Sudden she flies, and whelms it o’er the pyre;

  260 Down sink the flames, and with a hiss expire.

  Her ample presence fills up all the place;

  A veil of fogs dilates her awful face:

  Great in her charms! as when on shrieves and may’rs

  She looks, and breathes herself into their airs.